Piglet Castration Last update: 23 October 2016

Campaign for banning castration without anaesthetic

The Austrian federal animal welfare law prohibits inflicting unnecessary harm to animals, but still, the regulations applying to rearing pigs directly contradict this by allowing the castration of piglets without anaesthetic or pain relief up to the age of 7 days.

VGT has been raising awareness about this issue for many years. Other countries demonstrate that the industry’s argument that consumers are not prepared to pay the extra price on meat to include anaesthetic is simply wrong: Switzerland, Australia and Norway have all banned castration without anaesthetic. There is also a non-invasive procedure in the form of hormone injections which delay the onset of maturity in male pig.

Recently we have joined forces with our partner organisations to form Fair Ferkel (Fair Piglet). Together we will push to bring about an end to piglet castration without anaesthetic by 2019, the same year that Germany intends to implement a ban. In our first joint press conference we presented findings from a survey which shows that 82% of Austrians would welcome a ban. The findings highlighted that many consumers were led to believe by advertising, especially for organic pork, that everything was being done to reduce suffering.